1 Samuel 6:6-18

6Why then do you harden your hearts 1as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had severely dealt with them, 2did they not allow 3the people to go, and they departed? 7Now therefore, take and 4prepare a new cart and two milch cows on which there 5has never been a yoke; and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home, away from them. 8Take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart; and put 6the articles of gold which you return to Him as 7a guilt offering in a box by its side. Then send it away that it may go. 9Watch, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to 8Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then 9we will know that it was not His hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance.”

10Then the men did so, and took two milch cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 11They put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the box with the golden mice and the likenesses of their tumors. 12And the cows took the straight way in the 10direction of 11Beth-shemesh; they went along 12the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines followed them to the border of Beth-shemesh.

13Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they raised their eyes and saw the ark and were glad to see it. 14The cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stood there where there was a large stone; and they split the wood of the cart and 13offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. 1514The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the box that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on the large stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices that day to the Lord. 16When the 15five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned to Ekron that day.

1716These are the golden tumors which the Philistines returned for a guilt offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron; 18and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, 17both of fortified cities and of country villages. 18The large 19stone on which they set the ark of the Lord is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.